Site Search Navigation

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Chinese Company Aims Big With Android Smartphone

By David Barboza September 2, 2010 12:52 pmSeptember 2, 2010 12:52 pm

SHANGHAI — Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications equipment giant, made its first big move into the global smartphone market on Thursday by announcing the release of Ideos, which the company calls an affordably priced device preinstalled with Google’s Android 2.2 operating system.

The Ideos is the first smartphone made by a Chinese company specifically for the global market.

The phone goes on sale next Friday in Hong Kong and is expected to be available later this year in North America, Europe, Latin America and other parts of Asia. Huawei calls it an“entry-level” mobile phone, priced at $100 to $200.

The announcement marks the first time a Chinese company has designed and marketed a smartphone specifically for the global market. This year, the Chinese computer maker Lenovo released its own smartphone in China, which the company dubbed the LePhone.

Although Huawei is not well-known in the West, it is already one of the world’s biggest telecom equipment suppliers, and it is widely considered the most capable high-tech company in China.

The company, based in Shenzhen, is privately controlled but in recent years has received substantial support from Chinese government banks for its international expansion.

Huawei (pronounced hwa-way) already has a strong foothold as a telecom equipment supplier in Europe and Africa and is now trying to move more aggressively into the United States.

Glory Cheung, a Huawei spokeswoman, said Thursday that the company had developed several other smartphones using the Android operating system for European countries over the past year.

The company says its new product, Ideos, was designed and developed in partnership with Google. The Google logo appears on the back of the phone.

The phone’s sleek design and touchscreen echoes Apple’s popular iPhone; it comes in a variety of colors and is equipped with a 3G USB modem.

Google’s complaints about government censorship in China and its decision earlier this year to move its search engine out of China apparently did not prevent the company from teaming up with Huawei.

Huawei said this year that it intended to develop a “$150 smartphone that is similar to an iPhone user experience.” The company said it wanted to show that it could create a technologically advanced smartphone at a more affordable price.

The company said Thursday that it was now in talks with telephone operators around the world and that “many of them have shown a strong interest in launching Ideos.”